D&D 5E Should You Buy The Setting Books Regardless?

[toucanbuzz]

Setting books are tricky because I want to support setting books, but I wouldn't buy them if I didn't know the world. In my experience, people want to play Dragonlance not because I said it's cool, but probably because they read the Legend of the Twins and Chronicles trilogies. I have no interest in Eberron because, without having read novels, I don't feel I could make it come alive and breathe (even having played D&D Online, set in Eberron).

 

[RogueRonin]

I like reading through setting books, even if I won't run a game in that setting. In the case of Eberron, I haven't run a game in-world since it first came out circa ~2004, but I will use bits of it for my games (Warforged, Artificers, cool setting lore like the Gatekeeper druids and the better fleshed-out dragons). I'm not super into the magical technology borderline steampunk aesthetic of the setting, but there are still tons of good ideas to salvage.

Doesn't hurt that I got the book for roughly $15 on black friday.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

No thanks. No desire to run Eberron and have better uses for that money.

 

[ChaosOS]

Setting books are tricky because I want to support setting books, but I wouldn't buy them if I didn't know the world. In my experience, people want to play Dragonlance not because I said it's cool, but probably because they read the Legend of the Twins and Chronicles trilogies. I have no interest in Eberron because, without having read novels, I don't feel I could make it come alive and breathe (even having played D&D Online, set in Eberron).

Is that because you don't find the style of writing in setting books difficult to translate to the game? Or because you feel the novels provide important setting information? If it's the latter, the Eberron novels aren't canon, but if you were to pick up a series the general consensus is that Don Bassingthwaite's books are the best Eberron books (Everyone loves Keith's worldbuilding but Don is a better novelist)

 

[Retreater]

Is that because you don't find the style of writing in setting books difficult to translate to the game? Or because you feel the novels provide important setting information? If it's the latter, the Eberron novels aren't canon, but if you were to pick up a series the general consensus is that Don Bassingthwaite's books are the best Eberron books (Everyone loves Keith's worldbuilding but Don is a better novelist)

Speaking only for myself, I can't use setting books because I have an inability to process the information. I've tried. I don't know if it's some sort of deficiency in my comprehension skills, but it all reads like nonsense. Made up people, made up places, thousands of years of history, thousands of miles of land to keep up with - all usually with no real guide on how use 300+ pages of information.

 

[ChaosOS]

I think there's certainly something to be said that the traditional method of setting book writing is quite bad at turning into gameable material. I'm not the best judge as a dedicated Eberron fan, but I feel like between the Group Patrons and chapter 4 Rising did a lot to make it more accessible than normal.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Speaking only for myself, I can't use setting books because I have an inability to process the information. I've tried. I don't know if it's some sort of deficiency in my comprehension skills, but it all reads like nonsense. Made up people, made up places, thousands of years of history, thousands of miles of land to keep up with - all usually with no real guide on how use 300+ pages of information.

I add the same problem while first reading it.

What I found helping is start ''large'' then zoom in on the details. Dont read the book from the start to the end. I started with the cosmology and the planes (which are somewhere in the middle of the book), with the map of the planes next to me to get a visual aid. Then I went to the history part and the nations descriptions, again with the map. Once you established what is where, the part with the enemy factions, houses and name-dropping of a bunch of event and subgroup makes more sense. (Dont tell me what is a Kalashtar and its Quori mind if I dont know about Sarlona and its background first!)

Once you get to know the general layout of the setting, then you can go back to the start of the book with the details on races, the price of magitech and such. I personally kept the whole Group patron and adventure cues for another read.

 

[Horwath]

Even if you do not use Eberron as a whole for setting, you can use many portions of it in your other setting. Official or homebrewed.

In Faerun you can put warforged into Thay as an invention of Red Wizards. Maybe make them that they are a living soul transfered into a semimechanical body. Or last sentient remnant of Netheril empire.

Maybe lots of shifters live in eastern Glimmerwood in Silver marches.

Dragonmarks can be linked to some big families in major Faerun cities.

Mark of shadow could fit nicely with some members of House Beanre of Menzzoberanzan

 

[toucanbuzz]

Is that because you don't find the style of writing in setting books difficult to translate to the game? Or because you feel the novels provide important setting information?...

Dark Sun, for those who have heard of it, may be a better way to explain the point. I moved recently and was going to run Dark Sun with my old group. Not a one had heard of the setting or read the books or played the old computer games. It was an impossible task to simply explain to them why it would be exciting. Now, Dark Sun was clever in that every adventure module came with a short story. So, I scanned those and gave those to my players. The literature can be a huge influence if we're talking about moving from a generic setting like Forgotten Realms (where everything you can imagine is there and pretty much as you expect, dragons and unicorns and orcs and so on) and into something a bit alien, like steampunk.

Now that I'm with a new crew, same thing. I've got a Dark Sun poster in my game room and I've casually brought it up, but no one has read the books or played the computer games. It's key to me that I be able to bring the world alive, and 100s of pages of novels and stories (and I pray they're good) help with that. Whether it be the vallenwood trees of Solace on Krynn or the machinations of the Zhentarim and interplay with the church, or how a mul perceives the world and derisively views magic users as weak (they never had to physically work or suffer for what they got), it largely comes from fiction. And, I want my players to feel a bit of the same.

 

[gyor]

It depends, limited funds no, if you have a reasonable amount of money to burn then yes.